The Trial and Evidence of a Frame Up

The trial was held in Jacksonville less than six months after the murders. The trial judge was Maurice Paul who should never have been allowed to preside at the trial because he had been a character witness in a trial a few months before the murders of a black friend of Tommy Zeigler's, Andrew James, who owned a bar in Winter Garden. Tommy was a character witness for Mr. James who had been accused by the judge's friend of selling drugs. Partly as the result of Tommy's testimony, Andrew James kept his bar and the home of the man who had made the drug allegation against him was firebombed.

The first link takes you to the section of trial transcript in which Zeigler is examined and then cross examined by Mr. Eagan, the state attorney. On page 25 of the section or page 2425 of the entire transcript Eagan asks Zeigler to tell him how he held his father-in-law around the neck and beat him with a metal linoleum crank. Eagan knew that Tommy's wife's father had the same blood type as Charlie Mays whom Zeigler said he had fought in the dark store after he was attacked. The DNA proved Eagan was lying. The blood was from Charlie Mays. On page 51, Eagan is questioning Mary Partin in proffered testimony before the judge which Eagan wants to present to the jury. Partin was the girl friend of another prosecution witness, Ray Ussery. Partin claims that Zeigler's dead wife, Eunice, had confided in her that she was afraid of Tommy and was planning to leave him with her parents from Georgia. Eagan knows she is lying about Eunice saying she had just discovered that Tommy had taken out insurance on her. Eunice was fully aware of the insurance and actually had signed the insurance document. Partin was the source of media rumors that Tommy was a homosexual and was having an affair with a "prominent man." Eagan had tried and failed to get a known homosexual who was in jail to testify that he was Zeigler's male lover. The man refused because he did not know Zeigler. ﻿Click here to see a video taped interview with the mother of the man Eagan prosecuted for murder when he would not testify in the Zeigler trial!﻿

The link entitled Evidence Charlie Mays was a Murderer refers to a murder of another store owner in Winter Garden in 1970. That murder had several overtones for the Zeigler murders because evidence was uncovered after the trial that Reddick's wife hired Charlie Mays to shoot her husband after first insuring that Reddick's gun was loaded with expended cartridges. If Edward Williams was working with Mays the night of the Zeigler murders, that may have been where Williams got the story he told that Tommy tried to kill him with a gun that was empty because all the bullets had been fired previously.

The link to a Robert Eagan letter to the sheriff department takes you to a copy of a letter written three months before the trial odering the sheriff to stop investigating Zeigler's belief that his effort to get the police to investigate loan sharking may have been the basis for the murders. All the state attorney wanted was to convict Zeigler as soon as possible!

Finally, the link to the affidavit claiming perjury takes you to the statement of the mother of a deceased man whom prosecutors tried to induce to testify against Zeigler by threatening to prosecute him for a different murder.

The interview was not found until many years after the trial. Had it been turned over to the defense, Zeigler would likely have been acquitted. A long report from the policeman who took Zeigler to the hospital stating the blood on his entry and exit gunshot wounds was dry was also hidden from defense. That report is too long for this site.